Most markets in Pakistan are filled with imported products or local imitations of international brands as we play catch up with global marketing trends.

Even the majority of local crafts are made with little love and care. New buildings or extensions spread their ugly disproportions across graceful old architecture, as clients want the most sellable space within the least budget. It is as if we have forgotten how to make things beautiful.

The crafts of mediaeval South Asia were mainly produced in an agricultural economy. The establishment of Muslim rule in the Subcontinent led to the rise of urbanism, creating a demand for luxury goods and attracted artisans to urban centres.

State-sponsored karkhanas or workshops were established to cater to the needs of the royal households and their armies. The first documented karkhanas were established by Firoz Shah Tughlaq. The Mughals developed them into meticulously organised institutions supporting at least 36 crafts, including weaving, metal-working, masonry, calligraphy, art and music.

The crafts flourished from Kashmir to Dhaka. Lahore, Multan, Sialkot, Peshawar and Thatta were important producers of crafts and skilled artisans. The chronicler of Shah Jahan, Abdul Hamid Lahori, writes that Lahore produced such “soft and delicate carpets that, compared with them, the carpets made in the factory of the kings of Persia look like coarse canvas.”

Lahore carpets were gifted to the Ottoman Sultan by Shah Jahan and made up the first shipment of carpets from Surat to England in 1615.

Akbar established the carpet-weaving tradition in India in 1520, when he brought carpet weavers from Persia to his palace in Agra and, later, when he established his court in Lahore. He introduced carpet-weaving to prisoners of Lahore Central Jail, who soon learnt to produce the finest carpets with 300 knots per square centimetre.

Ustad Ahmed Lahori is credited with being one of the main architects of the Taj Mahal in Agra. Another Lahori, Qazim Khan, cast the gold finial that tops the dome. From Multan, Abu Torah, a master mason, and Mohammed Hanif, a master marble tile-layer, and from Balochistan, Amir Ali, a master stone-cutter, worked on the Taj Mahal alongside craftsmen from Iran, Turkey, Samarqand, Baghdad, Syria and Qandahar.

Sialkot was a centre for papermaking. Its most famous paper, called ‘Jahangiri’, was ordered by Emperor Jehangir. Multan’s art of enamelling spread all over India.

The Mughal buildings in Pakistan, from the Shah Jahan Masjid of Thatta to the Mahabat Khan Masjid of Peshawer, the Wazir Khan Masjid, the Lahore Fort, the Badshahi Masjid, the Shalimar and Wah gardens, and a number of fine tombs, would all have used local artisans.

The Mughal karkhanas gave the world exquisitely designed and executed art, architecture, gardens and objects of infinite array. One could say these, and the wealth they produced, was what attracted the Dutch, the Portuguese, the French and, finally, the British to India. Ironically, this very interest also destroyed the craft industry.

The British Industrial Revolution took away India’s textile industry to England, making it illegal to produce textiles in India. The wages of artisans were deliberately reduced, to force whole communities to abandon their crafts. India was flooded with British products and was reduced to a supplier of raw materials.

Despite this, till a few generations ago, exquisite jewellery, fine silk saris — accessorised with designed sari key chains — silver filigree pandans and silver baby rattles were the norm. We no longer see peepal leaf paintings and writing on a grain of rice.

Today, in Pakistan, crafts are once again associated with rural centres. Artisans who migrated at Partition, received little encouragement. Banarsi silk weavers and a few designers, such as Banto Kazmi, keep the tradition of Mughal embroidery alive. The National College of Art in Lahore gave miniature painting a contemporary place.

Many countries are awakening from the spell of western consumer products and reviving traditional crafts. So too could Pakistan, before the last of the artisans fade away.

Durriya Kazi is a Karachi-based artist and heads the department of visual studies at the University of Karachi
Email: durriyakazi1918@gmail.com

Published in Dawn, EOS, May 16th, 2021